Gathering Moss
by alicat54
Summary: Mary's family was as perfect as a group of angels, monsters, humans, and not-so-humans could possibly be. When she tumbled into a new parallel dimension, she was understandably startled to find the corresponding souls of her family fleeing a fire, which reeked of sulfur. "Ben!" She clutched her traveling companion's arm. "We have to help them!" Like a Rolling Stone sequel AU xover
1. Chapter 1

...

Ch1: Gathering Moss

...

Mary Joellen Winchester's family was as perfect as a group of angels, monsters, humans, and not-so-humans could possibly be. She never knew how barely five years before her birth, this was very much not the case.

So, when she tumbled into a new parallel dimension, as part of her personal vacation sabbatical before going on to continue her education, she was understandably startled to find the corresponding souls of her mother and uncle fleeing a fire, which reeked of sulfur.

"Ben!" She clutched her traveling companion's arm. "We have to help them!"

...

On Mary's seventh birthday, Sam and Henry Winchester managed to dig up an old movie camera and taped the whole thing.

When the family gathered around the TV to watch the replay of the events, the little birthday nephilim took one look at her family on the screen and screamed in bone shattering, light breaking terror.

"They all look worse than dead!" she later wept into her mother's chest, as Deanna tried to comfort her daughter. "They look like they've never been alive at all!"

"Baby girl, it was just a video, nothing to be scared of. You've watched TV before, remember? It's just like that."

Mary shook her head, still pressed fervently into the hunter's embrace. "TV people aren't real! They don't have any inside bits! Seeing you and Daddy and Uncle Sam and everyone all empty like that was horrible!"

"What do you mean?" Deanna said, confusion breaking through her comforting tone. "We don't look any different in the video than we do normally."

"Yeah hu!" the nephilim insisted, pulling back to stare fixedly at her. "Real people have inside glow-y bits! It's how you can tell they're real!"

A spark of understand stilled the hunter's hands, before they continued rubbing comforting circles on her daughter's back. "You mean souls and grace."

The little girl rubbed her eyes. "Yeah, I guess."

"Hm, looks like you've got another superpower from your Daddy's side of the family," Deanna hummed, carding her fingers through her daughter's hair. "Us vanilla-humans can't see people's 'inside glow-y bits.'"

"What, not at all? Then how do you tell people apart? Ben and Alec have the same face, and the angels aren't always wearing the same person!"

"Practice, I guess. I usually can tell the twins apart because of how differently they act."

"But how can you tell that? I mean, Daddy's extra heads make it easy, but without seeing his glow..."

Deanna chuckled. "Extra heads, hu?"

"Of course!"

"Sorry, vanilla flavor, remember? I can only see the vessel bits."

"You mean you don't know what Daddy looks like?" Mary practically gaped in disbelief.

Deanna took a thoughtful breath. "I guess not, but that doesn't really matter."

"But Aunty Jodie says a man's looks are really important for...something."

She slanted her daughter a look. "Have you been eaves dropping on Sheriff Mills when she gives her grown up talks to the other girls? You know you're not allowed to those until you're older."

"But she said it was important!"

The hunter huffed. "A lot of people think looks are important, and they don't hurt. Mister Novak, he was Daddy's vessel, was not an unattractive man. But aesthetics aren't important when you love someone."

She drummed her fingers, parsing words in her mind. "Castiel is... I know him, because of what he does. I might sometimes forget he's borrowing a body, but that's not why I love him." Unbidden, a smile of self realization, as if an unvocalized conundrum finally had a resolution, pulled the corners of Deanna's mouth. "To me, your father is everything he had done for me. That's how I see him. I know him by his actions."

Mary frowned, her head tilting to the side in an inherited tick of confusion. "But I can tell you what he looks like so you'll know."

Deanna kissed her daughter's forehead. "Thanks, baby girl, but I'm fine. Now let's go back downstairs and apologize to Sam and Henry. They worked really hard on that video, and the big girl was beside himself when you got upset."

...

"Ben!" Mary tugged insistently at the man's arm again. "We have to help them!"

The transgenic frowned, already feeling apprehensive at his self appointed duty to keep his cousin out of trouble. "Why? They're not ours, and we could end up messing up this universe. Remember the whole lecture Nuriel gave you about parallel causalities?"

"That was a horrible powerpoint," the nephilim deadpanned. "And since when has ganking a homicidal demon ever been a bad thing?"

"Since your mother promised to use my pelt as a rug if you got hurt at all on my watch."

"What am I, six?"

"Anyway," Ben dismissed her pouting. "We shouldn't interfere. That Sam and Deanna, er, Dean I guess, are not ours. We shouldn't confuse them with our family, because despite how similar they look they are not the people we know. That was the entire second half of the powerpoint lecture, by the way."

"Of course I know they're not them, they don't look anything like them!"

And from her perspective it was true. Where Ben only say the strange mirror of his own face and Sam in his gangly colt years, Mary saw flaring souls of untarnished enthusiasm in place of the quiet jaded countenance of her family.

Deanna's counterpart in particular could barely be aligned with the image of Mary's mother. Gone were the scarred patches of sulfurous brimstone, carefully concealed under tight controls and mists of healing grace. Taught stretched lights caused by stressful circumstances were replaced with cool green eddies of inexperience.

Sam's soul was practically unrecognizable as well, never having willingly drunk demon blood, nor been to the cage and healed by the combined efforts of a garrison of angels.

Mary wondered how her father would look if she saw him. Surely the inner core of his grace would be unchanged, as the outer most corona had been regrown after his fall and subsequent reinstatement as a seraph. Would his seventh set of arms still be charred to ruin, or had that only been a remnant of pulling a soul free from hell? What other scars of life, so ingrained into her perception of 'parent' had yet to or ever to exist?

Despite the virtual strangers these parallel versions were to her senses, Mary couldn't fight down the screaming voice which claimed them as family. And Winchesters always looked after their family (you know in the generations following that of John Winchester, but mottos have to start somewhere).

Mary turned to Ben, jaw set in determination. "We can't leave them like this. A demon burned down Sam's apartment, and will most likely not rest until it finishes the job."

The transgenic groaned out half a sigh. "Fine, what's your plan?"

"What? I don't have a plan!" She fluttered. "Do you have a plan?"

"Why would I have a plan? This was your idea!"

"Well, you're the one who leads the tactical teams, I just run support and transportation! Why don't you have a plan? You job is to have plans!"

"Fine! Well, my plan is to listen to your plan!"

Mary growled. "Ug, can't we just smite the damned thing?"

"I don't know, can we?" Ben shot her a side look, and the girl flushed.

Unlike her baby brother, Mary was not born with a sword in any of her multiple hands. From an angelic perspective, she was all wings, full of movement speed, with barely any trace of claw or steel. Sure, she had enough spunk to smite a skin walker or other mortal creature, if need be, but a demon, especially a demon of the caliber of that yellow-eyed one, was beyond her capability.

She twisted her lip. "What we really need is some help. But we can't go home; the likelihood of finding this place in the multiverse again is tediously miniscule. It has to be someone from here, but who? Sam and guy-Dean?"

"Probably would shoot us full of rock salt, and they're clueless about demons at this point in time. I checked, they didn't even have an anti-possession tattoo."

Mary winced. "Right, we should send them an anonymous tip." She bit her lip. "No angel would help us here, as I'm considered illegal still."

"Gadreel would help us," Ben said quietly. At Mary's inquiring look, he elaborated. "At Chippewa, he used to tell us about his time in heaven's psy-ops and solitaire." The transgenics lips twitched over bitter memories of trauma shared over campfires and marshmallows. "He'll do whatever we want, if we can get him out."

"Wouldn't that be," she twisted her lips. "Unethical?"

"He would be free," the transgenic said, clipped. "Motives don't mean much to a person in his situation."

Mary nodded sharply, smothering her apprehension under determination. "All right."

In a flick of her wings, the duo was transported from the charred roadside to the nice hotel room they had rented closer to the college campus.

"Watch my body while I'm gone, would you?" she said, laying down on the dusty comforter.

"I hate it when you do that," Ben frowned, settling on the adjacent bed.

"Well I can't exactly take it with me without attracting attention." Mary smiled at her cousin. "I promise I'll try to stay out of trouble."

The transgenic sighed, settling his elbows on his knees to watch.

Mary hummed contentedly against the pillows, and closed her eyes.

Being creatures of non-physical origin, angels, understandably, had only a vague comprehension of appearance.

If a human in a physical body were to see them, an angel would appear in every sense to be a solar flare. However, a human soul in heaven might impose the form of a human if they were to see an angel, much like how images and concepts in dreams sometimes bore the faces of strangers.

However, an angel might have a certain way it thinks its abstracts and wavelengths should look, so might choose to overlay its own mental picture of itself upon other spiritual beings. So, an angel who thinks itself fierce might have the face of a lion; a calm angel might be a lake or ocean; a warrior might be covered in scars.

Mary, being more human than most of her family, saw a kind of double vision. An angel in a vessel on earth would have a distinct halo in place of the normal aura of a soul. An un-hosted angel might give her body a sunburn if they were being confrontational, but for the most part remained as fluctuations of light, until the nephilim changed her perception to take in all of the various dimensions of existence. Then she could see the extra faces and feathers.

Of course, this meant that she could never look at herself, mirrors being unable to reflect sixth dimensionally. However, she supposed she looked similar to her little brother, just with wings instead of extra arms.

Her father, at her request, described her non-physical appearance as, literally, half an angel. She had the tiny complicated ball of twine look of a human soul, except with some of the threads pulled out into wispy comet tails of grace.

Mary's perception of herself was also much less variable than the average angel's, what with her human tendency to be attached to appearance, due to having been born with a static body. Thus, when she cared to think about what her non-physical form looked like, she always looked like a great pair of wings, roughly the size and height of her human body. Of course there were extra bits and bobs, but nothing too extreme. Even her own father stood taller than the Chrysler building, and he was very humble about his self perceptions.

So, when Mary shrugged off her body to make a rescue mission, all Ben saw was a flicker of white light, and she was gone.

...

Castiel would often bring his children into heaven under the guise of taking them to work in the courtrooms with him. True, the angel would show them the tree lined gardens of governing and the well worn paths of travel; however his intentions were not entirely benign.

"When your mother dies," he told them, "I will withdraw from earth to reside here with her, until such time as her soul might wish to be reborn, when I will follow back to the physical plane. Neither of you inherited her mortality, so will continue to walk the earth in your prime long after we depart."

"But what about us?" Jim, barely ten at that time, had whined, multitude of arms clutching at his father's feathers, unable to comprehend a world without his parents. "Don't you love us enough to stay?"

The celestial being soothed the boy's tears with a brush of his fingers in an acquired instinct. "No. I will always love your mother more." His wings encircled Mary and Jim. "But you rank among the three beings in all of creation for which I would do anything. And because I love you, and cannot bare our family to be sundered by Death, I will teach you how to break into heaven."

Kissing the nephilim on their brows, he gestured at the boundaries of the celestial stronghold. The children leaned in conspiratorially close, excited for the moment of familial felony bonding. "Should the gates of heaven ever be bared to you, whether it be because of prejudice against your nature or a disagreement, you can always find a back door."

"But I can't fly," Jim said, not needing to draw attention to his lack of wings.

Mary cuffed him across the back of the head, an easy feat since he hung on her arm as they hovered. "Quiet dummy, I'll fly for the both of us."

The angel smiled at his children's tussling. "Neshama, listen closely." The children quieted under the familiar words of affection. Castiel motioned to the spider silk thin paths winding up the outermost barriers of heaven. "These are the areas away from the eruv. Most were closed after Lucifer's fall, but a few were forgotten or re-opened in secret."

Mary traced the cracks with her eyes, committing them to memory.

"I once used these paths to retrieve your mother's soul during the apocalypse." His feathers puffed out with fond pride. "But one day, you will use them to come visit us."

The nephilim nodded seriously, still too young to practically grasp the idea of a world without what was currently there, but trusting their parent of the secret ways's importance.

...

A turquoise mote of light slipped through the forgotten cracks of heaven, unknowingly tracing the same walkways and threads a certain archangel in witness protection used to maintain a connection to the host.

It hung low, spreading itself thin against the fabrics of heaven to muffle the dim glow of grace.

In a forgotten corner of the exclusively angelic areas, a being hung suspended by metaphorical chains a burningly bright pit composed of confining bars and silence.

The being, who called himself Gadreel, stared at the millennia same walls of his enclosure. Had he any knowledge of humans, he would desperately wish for their ability to sleep, or at the very least lose track of time. But, alas, the angel knew every sharp moment of his imprisonment with celestial clarity.

Thus, when something changed, his attentions immediately zeroed in, starved for stimulation.

A moth of grace fluttered into his line of sense. "Hello," it said, pulsating a friendly turquoise.

Gadreel stared, unable to even tilt his head to better perceive this strange being.

"My name is Mary," the flutter continued, alighting gently against his cheek. "I need your help."

"I would consider your request, but as you can see, I am rather constrained." He hissed, mind too long practiced in communicating only with screams.

"If I can get you out, will you help me?"

The former guardian of Eden snapped to focus his senses on her, causing partially healed wounds to weep anew as his being pulled against the chains. "No angel can escape heaven's prison."

The flutter, Mary, flexed her wings, multitudes of green eyes blinking in their depths. "I am not an angel, I am nephilim. I am too human for angels and too angelic for humans. As it is, heaven cannot hold me."

Gadreel had been imprisoned long before the creation of humans. He stared more closely at her, noticing the minuscule core of complexity beating beneath the shroud of grace.

"If you can get me out of here, I will serve you to my last breath," he vowed.

The nephilim swayed, wings curling close to each other in a half regretted shame. "I do not want your service. You are-" Feathers fluttered agitatedly. "Here, look."

Pressing close to the larger being, the nephilim reached out, impressing upon his grace the warm memories of her home, and the meandering journey which brought her to this dimension. Were he human, the angel would have wept at the familial affection pouring around this girl's version of himself.

Mary cut her stream of consciousness off, listening. "We should hurry."

"These confinements cannot be broken," Gadreel said thickly.

"OK," Mary said, tracing the metaphorical metal to where they imbedded in the less dense grace derived walls of the cell. "We'll just have to get them off later." She squeezed her body between the cracks of firmament, exasperating faults till they crumbled, causing the chains to clatter free.

Soon the ancient angel lay prostrate, grace twitching in haphazard relief after so long being stretched and hung.

"Let's go."

"I can't fly," Gadreel said, indicating his hobbled wings.

Mary ghosted over the rusted clasp twisting the joints at his shoulder blades and the blood crusted chains strung like streamers through his bones. The guardian shuddered when she touched his shattered halo.

"That's all right," she said, quietly. "I can fly for the both of us."

Gathering the crippled being beneath her wings, she tipped sideways and fell towards the earth. The barriers of heaven wavered slightly as the pair passed, statically clinging to the edges of grace, but unable to stick to the human tangle knocking the hooks away.

Gadreel savored the feeling of creation blowing past the ruins of his wings, not noticing as his rescuer guided their tumble to a specific planet's continent which contained a pinprick of a motel room, and a worriedly pacing part panther.

Mary held him gently, just beyond the reaches of human perception. "Gadreel, this is Ben, my cousin. He agreed to be your host while you're down here helping us."

"He is not the most suited to me," the angel wheezed. "But he will do."

Carefully, he eased himself from the woman's grasp and into the dimensions a human could sense.

...

Ben blinked, and his surroundings changed from a dumpy motel room to the head office of Camp Chippewa.

"Hello Ben."

The transgenic spun around to see a copy of himself, save for the stoically blank expression. His lips twisted together. "Gadreel?"

"Yes."

Ben chuckled. "Sorry, I'm not used to seeing you like that."

The angel looked down to examine the leather jacket he wore. "This is not my true form this is-"

"A manifestation, I know." Ben interrupted, crossing to the large filing desk in the corner and rummaging in the drawers. After a moment he puled out a thick sheaf of paper. "Ah! Here it is!"

Placing the papers on the desktop, he motioned Gadreel closer.

"What is this?" the angel said, reading the Enochian letters glittering gold on the paper.

"It's an informed consent contract," Ben said. "Back home, after angels started coming down to earth regularly, there was some conflict over how the people they asked to host them didn't know what they were getting into. It got pretty ugly, then Claire decided she could do more good working with the lawyers upstairs than fighting the system down here. She and Hael got a really good petition together, and managed to change some of the old practices."

Ben motioned at the contract. "An unusually high number of transgenics are suitable as vessels, so some of us agreed to be part time hosts. The principalities inscribed these contracts onto the edges of our souls; basically I'll lend you my body, and you agree not to do anything I would disagree with, or else the warding inscribed on my ribs is activated, and you're forced out of the physical plane."

Gadreel ran a finger down the metaphorical paper. "And what would constitute something you would disagree with?"

The blonde rolled his shoulders back in a shrug. "Suppressing my consciousness. Anything else I call on the fly."

"Your terms appear to be agreeable," the angel said, signing his name on the bottom of the contract with a wave of his hand.

"Awesome."

The office room faded as the human's mind scape folded back into subconscious conception.

Sinking into Ben's bones, Gadreel could feel the echoing remains of other angels. He tasted the sparks of grace curiously, stunned to feel one which was familiar.

"Abner," he breathed, hand curling around his chest.

" _Yeah. He was the only one we trusted to do a trial run for the contract, at first. It would have been you, but..."_ Ben's mental voice trailed off ponderously. _"Your host had been in prison for a while, and didn't have anything left to go back to. Timone's a great guy, if you ever get the chance to meet him."_

"Perhaps I shall endeavor to find him, when you depart."

" _I think he'ld like that."_ Ben said, before settling back into a well worn psychic niche, watching.

Gadreel refocused his attention on the hotel room, idly skimming his host's memories to identify the purpose of such strange items and decorations. On the opposite bed, Mary stared at him.

"All settled in?" she asked.

The angel inclined his head. "Yes. Your cousin Ben also wishes to inquire as to what the next phase of your plan is, now that you have acquired my help."

Her stare gained laser like intensity. "Gadreel, have you ever had pie?"

"I do not require-"

"Not the point!" she crowed, springing to her feet. "So, phase two is lunch! Then we'll talk."

Gadreel's brows furrowed in confusion, but he followed his companion from the room on foot. "Ben wishes to make it known that he believes your attempts at procrastinating and in the hopes of gaining enough time to think of a plan are transparent."

"Well tell Ben that now he's not getting any pie!"

Later, in a cozy diner down the road, one and a half angels sit in a kitchy red plastic booth tucked in the establishments quiet back.

Gadreel had half a fork full of peach cobbler held in front of his borrowed face, staring as if he could break down its molecular secrets with his eyes.

"You stick it in your mouth," Mary informed him, with the casual ease of one used to explaining basic human functions. "And you pay attention to the chemical signals sent to the brain by the taste buds on the tongue. Just enjoy the dopamine rush."

Her companion raised his brows dubiously, but slid the fork between his lips with mechanical motions. He chewed thoughtfully, half listening to Ben's internal monologue of the correct procedure of eating, before he swallowed.

"Well?" Mary prompted, mouth half full of pot pie.

"It tastes like molecules." He tilted his head. "Ben informs me that my answer ranks among the most common phrases heard in these particular circumstances, and also wishes for you to get a move on with your planning."

"Spoil sport." The nephilim scowled, and wiped her face with a napkin. "Right, Gadreel, I don't know how much Ben has told you, but there's a demon after this universe's version of my family, and we need your help if we're going to stop it."

Gadreel tilted his head. "I see...it is not in your nature's capacity to fight."

Mary twisted her fingers self consciously.

The angel's eyes turned distant as he listened to his internal monologue. "Ben is expounding the virtues of loving over fighting." His gaze refocused on her. "I meant no insult. However, I must tell you, I no longer have a blade of my own. It was taken during my imprisonment."

"We can work around that, we won't abandon you just because-"

"You misunderstand, I am fully capable of smiting a demon," he interrupted. "However, I will be at a disadvantage if I encounter another angel."

"Are you sure? I don't want you getting unnecessarily hurt..."

The corner's of Ben's mouth curled, and his eyes softened. "As I was, even Lucifer hesitated to confront me directly. I am diminished, but not powerless."

"That's...good." Her fingers unclenched. "So, the only lead we have is that the demon will eventually try to go after Sam and Dean again. So, we should do a stakeout and pounce when it strikes!"

The angel tilted his head. "Ben wishes to remind you that this venture is your own, and he will not interfere unnecessarily. However, he indicates that your logic is sound."

Mary beamed. "Great! Let's go steal a car!"

...

...A/N:

Pilot is in November. Skin is in february.

...


	2. Chapter 2

...

...Ch2...

...

In an urban corner of St. Louis, two figures crouched on an apartment roof, watching as a pair of brothers stalked through a crime scene.

"Aw, mom, you doppleganger's badass level is exponentially falling," Mary moaned, head pillowed on her arms.

"It's not like they're expecting a skin walker." Ben countered, squinting through binoculars. "I don't think they've even ever seen one before yet."

She sighed. "At least they got the Wendigo. If they were blindsided by that, not only would I have to disown them out of pure shame, but I would throw them in Grandpa Bobby's panic room and throw away the key."

The transgenic looked down at her. "Look, if you're just going to be a nuisance, why not just meet me back at the hotel?" A blue light flickered in the back of his eye. "Dreel agrees with me, and thinks your time would be better utilized 'procuring sustenance'. I think that's code for ice cream and waffles. If I get flabby because you got the angel in my body addicted to junk food, I'll never forgive you."

Mary giggled. "With your metabolism, he could eat out a candy shop and not notice."

"Don't you dare!" he snarled at her considering expression.

She stuck out her tongue. "Fine, I'll just eat it all myself then!" She fluttered away before her cousin could reply.

Ben sighed, sharing his indulgent commiseration with his passenger. The angel curled confusedly over the emotions, but managed the idea of a shaky half smile in return.

Below, Sam and Dean traced the monster to a manhole cover, and followed it down. When the duo didn't emerge after an hour, Ben swore, and leapt from the roof to the ground.

His legs were saved from shattering by the grace of Gadreel, and he sprinted down the drain after the idiot brothers.

"Seriously," he grumbled as he cocked his gun full of silver bullets. "Now I know why Caerulea Domina insists on so many hunting rules and training, because she was the idiot who had to learn them all first hand!"

He rounded a a corner and nearly ran into a copy of himself. Two shots, one in the heart the other between the eyes, saw the monster bleeding out in the drain. Ben sneezed and rubbed his nose, trying to dislodge the clinging scent of new skin and bloody musk which he could never quite get rid of after meeting up with a shifter.

Sneezing again, he tried to scent his way through the twining tunnels to where the Winchester brothers were being held.

He found Sam easily enough, and cut the hunter's bindings after making sure he was breathing and uninjured. He had to smother a laugh at the sight of Dean, clad only in leiderhosen, with his hands tied around his back. The hunter might have fluttered near lucidity when Ben took a moment to snap some blackmail pictures with his phone, but he didn't wake up once freed, so Ben ignored it.

Gadreel ghosted across his thoughts in mild admonishment, but the transgenic quieted him with the assurances that the blackmail was all in good fun. As he climbed back to the surface, he entertained his guest with a tale of one of his and his twin's prank wars, which had evolved into a full scale tactical search and destroy exercise, engulfing over half of the members of Camp Chippewa.

Back at the hotel, Ben dozed in the back of his mind, while Gadreel squinted at the cooking channel, as if it held the secrets of the universe. Considering that many angels actually knew said secrets caused Ben to wonder if maybe it did.

The panther was startled from his warm nap by the door crashing open and bouncing back against the wall.

The Winchester Brothers (TM) stalked in, guns drawn, scowling.

"Hands where I can see them!" Dean snarled. He was back in his leather coat and jeans, so Ben supposed that he must have found the dead shifter and taken his clothing back.

Ben waited for his body to comply, but it sat frozen on the couch.

" _Gadreel?"_ he thought.

The angels wings flailed against the inside of their spine and ribcage. _"They're vessels! They know I'm free! They're going to call heaven! I'll be taken back there!"_

 _"Calm down, soldier!"_

 _"I can't! I can't!"_ Gadreel's thoughts whirled in panic.

" _I won't let them trap us,_ " Ben soothed, shifting smoothly into the control seat of his body. _"They couldn't even if they tried."_

The angel's grace calmed as he buried himself deep within the recesses of his host's mind.

Ben took a deep breath and opened his eyes. Placing his hands behind his head, the transgenic spun to face his captors. "Well, looks like you caught me boys."

Dean cocked his gun. "Looks like."

In short order, Ben found himself manhandled into the desk chair and tied down with phone cords. This was only the... third time he had found himself in a similar position, though even having parallel-copies of his grandmother and uncle there made him very uncomfortable to recall those past encounters.

Holy water splashed him in the face, drawing him back to the present, followed swiftly by a silver knife scoring a line across his bicep.

He could feel he hunter's mounting confusion as he failed to react to any of their tests.

Ben rolled his eyes. "I'm not a shape shifter or a demon or a revenant, I'm your grandson. From the future."

"Yeah, right," Dean snarked, pulling out a silver knife.

"No, 'Gee thanks for saving my ass in the sewer, those leiderhosen were chafing!' Just going straight to the stabbing? Ok then." The transgenic sighed.

"Dean maybe we should listen to him, I mean he did kill the shifter," the taller man said, brows furrowed.

"Shut up Sammy."

At that moment, the hotel door rattled and opened, revealing a startled brunette with green eyes clutching a bag of groceries.

"Hey, back already from funky town?" Ben said, invoking a code word which in this instance meant 'just follow along'.

Mary shut the door, careful to leave her hands in view of the trigger happy hunters currently holding her cousin prisoner.

Ben wriggled in his chair, testing bonds which he could easily break, even without angelic strength. "They know who I am and the time bending magics, so no need to keep anything about me a secret."

The nephilim shifted her weight from one foot to the other, prompting the hunters to tense around their triggers.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Ben twisted to speak at his captors. "This is my cousin, she's vanilla flavored, so no need for guns and stabbing!"

"Ben?" Mary was carefully not moving, for though she could most likely survive a gun shot, she did not wish to try it. "I thought we were keeping a low profile until we got home."

The transgenic resisted a smile. Good, they were building up a story that, while not believable, was much less unbelievable than claiming to be a half angel and half panther from a future parallel dimension. "I was," he said affronted, "But then Gramps and Sasquatch here almost got body snatched by the shifter."

"I thought you said we weren't going to alter the time stream more than what was unavoidable."

Ben shrugged, "What can I say, I acted on instinct."

The brothers had watched this exchange with mounting confusion, until Sam finally cracked.

"Time travel isn't possible," he said.

"Sure it is!" Mary chuckled. "It's old soul magic. Needs like, angel feathers and griffin tears, or something like that. Hardly ever used, because it works on a linear model of time, meaning that if you try to go back to change something you've either created a splinter universe, or you've always gone back in time and what you do doesn't change anything. Rather annoying."

"So you're saying you're a witch?"

"Ug, no!" the nephilim gagged. "Witches use an outside source of power. Soul magic can only be done by...people with a specific type of will and constitution. So, like, half a percent of the population."

The taller hunter's gun lowered. "And that's how you ended up here."

"Sammy, you can't actually be believing this!" Dean snapped.

The younger brother shot the elder a wide eyed look. "Why not Dean? The guy's not a shifter, but he looks just like you. And it's not like this isn't the weirdest thing to happen to us."

Dean raised an eyebrow.

"Ok, maybe this makes the top three, but come on." Same rescinded.

The elder hunter sighed, but slowly clicked the safety back on his gun as he lowered it.

Mary beamed.

"Right, so now that that's all settled, can someone please untie me?" Ben said.

The party of hunters and sort-of-but-not-really time travelers retired to the battered motel the Winchester brothers had rented, what with Ben and Mary's hotel door having been smashed.

"Wait," Sam pulled the vowels of his words taught with dawning realization. "If you're Dean's grandson," he pointed at Ben, "and you're his cousin," he pointed at Mary, "does that make you-"

"Technically, I'm Ben's aunt. His momma was a lot older than me, so I called her my aunt instead of my sister."

The younger Winchester brother looked mildly relieved at his lack of paternity, even as the elder spluttered.

"What, you're supposed to be my kid?"

A sharp needle of hurt stabbed Mary's heart at the rejection by even just a pale shade of her mother. "Why, not what you expected?" she said, hiding her sorrow under bravo.

Dean ran a hand over his mouth, eyes inscrutable. "Mostly it's that you exist."

Green eyes narrowed, but before Mary could bluster out an insult, her cousin smoothly cut in.

"Hey Mary, why don't you and Dean head over to the diner and get more food? You only got enough for the two of us before, and it's only polite to treat our elders when they're being so hospitable."

"Elders?" Dean spluttered. "Kid, you don't look more than a year or two younger than me!"

"Yeah, but I'll technically not be born for a while, so suck it up grandpa!"

The elder Winchester grumbled under his breath, but grabbed his coat and keys. Mary jogged to follow him out the door to the Impala, leaving Ben and Sam alone.

"So," Sam drew out the word casually. "Dean has a lot of kids where you're from?"

"Yeah."

"And he's still with the same person?"

Ben's grin was all teeth. "Mary's mom is Caerulea. The Winchesters are lucky to have her."

"Her name is...Blue?"

The transgenic rolled his shoulders. "It's more of a title. She's a very important and respected woman. She's the Tzaddekes, and the mother of the future. It's because of her that any of us are alive, back home."

Sam's eyes widened incredulously. "And she ends up with my brother?"

Ben scowled. "You don't think Dean is worth that much?"

"Well," the taller man spluttered. "I just- if you knew him like I did-"

"Every iteration of Dean Winchester I've met has been a great person. You disrespect him by thinking so little of him."

"Well, considering that Mary's mom apparently some kind of awe inspiring figure individual, you can forgive me for wondering how she ended up related to me."

A cat with a canary could not have grinned as smug as Ben. "Like I said, the Winchesters are lucky to have her."

...

"I thought we were supposed to be bringing food back for Ben and Sam," Mary said as she perused the menu.

Seated in across from her in the red booth, Dean snorted. "Sam's a bitch, and your cousin shouldn't be such a smart ass if he wants to get fed."

The nephilim hid her smile under the pretense of scratching her nose.

"Have you two decided what you want?" the waitress said, walking over over with her notepad out.

"Yeah, I'll have a cheeseburger and a slice of the mixed berry pie, please." Mary said, handing over the menu.

"And you dear?" the waitress asked.

The table's other occupant startled from his thoughts. "The same," he shot out quickly.

Mary tried not to giggle as the waitress walked away.

Dean drank in her features like a sailor marooned without water. "Your mom," he hesitated, unsure of what to ask, before finally settling on a safe wording. "Are we... happy, where you're from?"

"Of course."

The hunter could only think how beautiful Mary's other parent must be, to make such a small twitch of the lips more tender than any expression he had yet to encounter.

"I've got four adopted big sisters, one of whom is Ben's mom," the young woman continued. "And I've got a baby brother, who looks less like you than I do, and about a million aunts and uncles and cousins."

Fondness smoothed out Dean's expression. "Guess I marry into a big family."

Mary chuckled. "You have no idea."

"And...they're all ok with hunting?"

"Smiting evil is the family business."

A genuine smile lit the hunter's face. "So your little brother looks like-?"

Mary tried to exclude any descriptions of the non-physical, which still aptly described her brother. "He's got blue eyes, but is blonde like you. I've got all the Winchester charm, but he fits right in with the awkward bunnies of the other side of family."

Dean hummed. "So, a black haired blue eyed socially awkward stranger will one day sweep me off my feet."

"What? I didn't say anything about-"

The hunter laughed. "What can I say, I'm batman."

Mary flushed. "Well, I'm not going to tell you any more if you keep trying to get secrets about the future from me. One of my aunts gave us a whole lecture about temporal causality, and Ben will freak, because he's the only one who listened to her."

Dean's deep laughter echoed around the diner.

...

...A/N:

Caerulea Domina: Blue Lady/Master. Ben uses this to refer to Deanna.

Mr. Winchester: Ben uses this to refer to Castiel, because he doesn't want Sam and Dean to know that Dean's counterpart is Mary's mom, and her father is an angel. He paid more attention to inter-dimensional time travel consequences than his cousin. (I think I ended up changing the line that used this, but I'll keep the note here just in case.)

So, Dean is 26 in 2005 S1. Ben is around that age, but looks younger due to his genetic tinkering. Mary is about 7~8 years younger than Ben, putting her at about 19~20yrs old in this story.


	3. Chapter 3

...

...Ch3...

...

Mary's parents, by necessity, never dwelt on the past.

Sure, they would throw around the usual 'how I met your mother' stories, but the details of how exactly Deanna ended up in hell, or what Castiel had to go through before he fell were always conveniently glossed over.

The nephilim woman had well formed ideas of the theocracy which once ran heaven, but she could never truly grasp the oppressive weight of Michael's rule, nor of the layers of subterfuge and corruption rampant in the ranks. She sometimes compared her ignorance to a Canadian trying to understand living in the Soviet Union during WWII.

In much the same strain, Mary knew her mother and uncle fought demons and monsters before derailing the apocalypse, and she knew her grandfather John died somewhere in between.

Looking at this strange parallel version of her home, Mary began to realize that she knew very little about her parents.

Her family, consisting of the legions of heaven and hunters of earth, would converge around the focal point of her mother and father to address a major threat. That was how the witch Rowena was defeated, when her machinations threw hell into chaos which subsequently spilled out onto earth. That was also how the fairy realms of Oz were put back to rights (though to be fair, Charlie headed that operation, though se had a support network to fall back on instead of splitting herself in half when the critical strike was needed).

Here, however, when she told Sam and Dean that a demon was after them, the brothers shrugged.

"We should be making plans," Mary insisted, "Consolidating our forces and contacting the local hunting network!"

"Network?" Dean laughed. "Yeah, and might as well call the justice league while you're at it."

"You mean you don't know any other hunters?" Ben interjected, laying a calming hand on his cousin's shoulder.

"It doesn't matter. We just need to find dad. He'll know what to do."

The nephilim scoffed audibly.

Dean rounded on her. "You show some respect, little girl. Our dad's one of the best hunters out there."

"I wouldn't know," she sneered, ignoring Ben's warning squeeze of her shoulder. "He wasn't around when I was growing up."

Sam didn't seem surprised by the comment, but Dean looked stricken.

"That's fine, you guys do what you have to. We'll keep you updated on what we uncover." Ben said, trying to diffuse the delicate emotional bomb ticking down in the room. He scribbled on a pad of paper from the motel desk. "Here's our numbers. You two give us a call if you need anything, ok?"

"I should be the one telling you that," Dean grumbled. The small upturn at the corner of his mouth betrayed his lighter mood, as he took the pad from Ben's hand.

Later, after the Winchesters had parted ways, Mary rounded on her cousin.

"How could you let them run off like that? We should be sticking together!"

"We were freaking them out," Ben said, calmly sorting through his own duffle bag. He was running low on gun oil, and would have to pick some up before leaving town.

"They're family!"

He fixed her with a cool green stare. "No, they're not. They could be, but they're not. Family's a two way street, and we might catch their interest as a novelty, but, as they are now, Sam and Dean don't have room in their lives for anyone but themselves."

"But we could help them!"

"Yeah, while keeping our less than normal powers under wraps. That will sure be easy. It's not like we'll be body guarding a couple of trigger happy xenophobes!"

She slapped him across the face. "You shut your mouth!"

Ben massaged his jaw, pain already fading due to his passenger. He sent a mental thanks to Gadreel, who was hovering apprehensively at the edges of the transgenic's mind, wondering if he should intervene. He turned his attention back to his cousin.

"Look Mary, tactically we have a better chance of helping them if we aren't with them. I know you want to work together, but Dean is not a team player, let alone a general like your mother. He's barely older than us."

The nephilim's shoulders sank, as her unseen wings drooped from their attacking posture. "I know. It's so weird seeing them like this."

"Yeah, probably more for you. At least I can differentiate Dean and your mother by appearance. You've got the whole soul thing to mix it up too."

She nodded glumly.

Ben folded his last shirt and zipped up his duffle. "I think we should start checking out signs and omens. See if we can track any demonic activity. If Sam and Dean call us, we can fly over, so we don't have to stay too close."

...

The call comes a month later.

Ben is talking Gadreel through the finer points of utilizing non-supernatural senses to detect lies on potential suspects, while interviewing witnesses to what seems to be either a ghost or serial killer. The transgenic will take care of the problem wither way, but enjoys the mental exercise on non-time sensitive cases.

Mary is the one who picks up, while her cousin is playing the interested reporter making a documentary.

"Hey." Dean's voice sounds weak, as if each breath is a struggle.

"Are you ok?" the nephilim asks, sitting up from her slump in the passenger seat.

The hunter coughs. "No, baby girl, I did something really stupid. Just wanted to make sure I didn't Marty McFly you."

"What?" Her chest clenched at the familiar address.

"So, you're ok? No body parts vanishing from a picture?"

"Abba, what's wrong? Where are you?"

Dean's soft smile radiated even through the phone. "...can you tell me again about your family?"

"Tell me where you are first."

"Please?"

Unbidden tears streaked down the woman's face. "...My baby brother Jim can't, get around, as well as the rest of the family. So when he turned sixteen, you took him on a week long road trip and taught him to drive the Impala. I was so jealous, I didn't talk to him for a month. You made me run courier duty with him until I got over myself."

A wheezing laugh tickled her ears through the receiver. "I sound like a pretty cool dad."

"The best. Dean, where are you?"

"It doesn't matter. Look I have to-"

"Your pet name for my other parent is Cas," Mary shot out, trying to keep the hunter on the line. She reached out with her senses, disentangling the radio waves bouncing from her phone to the cell towers.

"...What?"

"You two are so cute together. Once Cas filled the whole bunker with purple hyacinths to apologize after you guys had a fight, and you disconnected the cable for a week to stop them from getting any more sappy ideas from the Hallmark channel. Then Charlie jut told Cas to take you to a car show."

The radio waves bounced from tower to satellite, back down to earth, landing somewhere in Nebraska.

Dean laughed again. "That's some good advice."

"Charlie's awesome!"

Just a little bit more, she had the correct county. Just a little more time to find the town.

Sounds rustled in the background, and a door clicked open. "Dean, I found this faith healer-" Sam's muffled voice mumbled in the background.

"Mary I have to go," the hunter said.

"No wait-"

"I would have really liked to get to know you, baby girl."

The dial tone never sounded so bleak as it did then.

Ben returned from his interview to find his cousin curled up in the side of their stolen car, weeping.

"We're going to Nebraska," she snarled through her scratchy throat, before grabbing a fistful of his leather jacket, and pulling him along for her county wide search for the Winchesters.

Later, after Sam and Dean called to let them know this death sentence was a false alarm, and hey, reapers can apparently be bound with certain spells, Ben leaned over the toilet, clutching his stomach.

"Please," he begged, as his stomach lurched again. "Next time you want to take me for an extended flight, don't."

...

The duo continued their crisscrossing of the country searching out demon signs and taking cases as they appeared.

After a close miss in Chicago, and Dean and Sam resolutely refusing to answer their phones, Mary called in a vacation, and took her cousin to Hawaii.

Gadreel especially enjoyed the rain forests, quietly commenting on how it reminded him of his last, incredibly brief, time on earth. Ben was content to let the angel have free reign to commune with nature as much as he wanted, and spent the time napping in the back of his mind.

However Mary, being the child of two beings who did not know the definition of taking a non-working vacation, flitted across the globe and ether for a distraction. The emptiness of this parallel earth irked her, as she was used to finding angels, or at the very lease demons, taking up the non-space between atoms.

This earth was spiritually desolate.

Except for the reapers, of course, but Mary tended to steer clear of them when she could. Ted back home was nice, but he bore her family's attentions with the grudging resignation of one who knew they had no choice but to go with the flow or be overwhelmed.

The nephilim had a faint memory of the reaper escorting a gaunt man in a dark coat to one of the family picnics where her mother made pie, but Mary had been hustled inside and kept under guard so she wouldn't fly off, so she didn't ever find out who he was.

Something graceful tickled the back of her tongue, so faint she would not have noticed it from the usual spark of creation, were she not searching for a memory of home in this strange place.

Doubling back over Colorado, Mary tasted the air again, sifting through the dampened sound waves of earthy ritual sacrifice to the heavenly spark underneath.

Her feathers fluffed in interest.

The earthy feel reminded her of the two times Madam Kali had visited her family. Once to collect a sacred statue kept in the bunker's vault, and another to have tea with her mother and coo over Jim's multiple chubby baby arms. The goddess had never been explicitly welcome, but Kali and Deanna had some kind of mutual understanding with each other, that no one else had been able to puzzle out.

Swooping closer, Mary ran her metaphorical hands through space. There, in a cleverly tied fold, her fingers caught. Curiosity mounting, the nephilim wiggled into the disguised pocket space.

An angel she had never seen before awaited her.

"Hello!" she chirped, wondering whether she should flee or not. Though, this particular angel looked powerful enough to easily stop any escape she might try. So, in true Winchester fashion, she bluffed and blustered her way through her terror and immortal peril.

"Mah Nishmah?" the angel said, voice rumbling as if through a thousand violin strings in a wind tunnel.

"Shlomi Tov! Just running my wings through creation."

Low laughter reverberated through her bones, striking a familiar chord in her memory.

Mary searched the being's faces, trying to place its metaphorical features and expression. "I...how do I know you?"

The angel crouched low, gold eyes watchful and blank. "You don't."

She wafted into the air, skimming the feathers of his multitude of wings to alight on one of his outstretched hands. The woman stared at the celestial being, trying to place his faces. "No, I do. You're..." she wracked the recesses of her memory.

"If you knew me, you would not be so casual in how you spoke, little half-human."

"Because I know you, I don't feel any danger." The worn memory slithered close to the conscious levels of her mind, before sinking into obscurity again.

The angel considered her words, thousand faces watchful. "Even if I have no ill will towards you, our brethren will not be as kind if they see you flying so openly. You should be wary."

"I'm careful," she said, fluffing out her feathers imperiously.

"But curiosity can kill the canary, so you might want to be more discreet. Wouldn't want those pretty wings cut."

The nephilim flushed. "Well, why are you here? I thought angel's weren't allowed on earth at this point in time."

"...You really have no idea who I am."

"Well, it's not like we've introduced ourselves." She straightened her wings and held out her hand. "My name is Mary. It's a pleasure to meet you!"

Amusement lit within the multiple golden eyes, swirling them to liquid pools of lava. He held out one of his fingers, and carefully shook her proffered palm with the tip of a claw. Mary couldn't wrap her hand around even the claw's narrowest point.

"They call me Gabriel."

"The archangel!" Mary's interest spiked, as she tried to take in the being's metaphorical appearance.

She had never seen an archangel up close before, them being an endangered species in her home dimension. Once she spotted the dusky edges of Raphael's wings while visiting the heavenly courts with her father, but the archangel had been deep in discussion with his lawyers, and took no notice of her, thankfully. She recalled the archangel as a murky twilight in the scottish highlands, streaked through with the taste of lightening. Black eyes were closed in every face, but creeping fogs of grace clung to the heels of passers by, in what once may have been a gesture of comfort.

Gabriel was not like Raphael.

Instead of obscured landscapes, he echoed with looping geography, cracked deep like shifting continents. Wings waved high amidst the crests and troughs of light and sound, each feather a trumpeting herald presenting his appearance.

Mary felt incredibly small compared to such power.

"Yes, the archangel" Gabriel said, eyes scrutinizing her just as closely as she was him.

Her neck and ears flushed scarlet. "Well, shouldn't you be upstairs minding the masses?"

"No," he said simply.

Mary waited for more, but the wordless space stretched on, permeated by the chiming oceans of grace flowing through the being before her.

She coughed. "Well, it's been nice meeting you, Gabriel. We should chat again some time."

"You are unexpectedly irreverent." An idea of a smile settled on his less inhuman face, as she fluttered from his palm. "Very human."

"Thank you," she preened. "You're not too bad yourself."

"Most would not take that as a compliment."

"Then they clearly don't know what they're talking about! Humanity is awesome!"

He chuckled like waterfalls flowing off the edge of the earth. "I suppose you're right."

Mary winged towards the edges of the pocket dimension. "Well, Shalom."

"Shalom," the archangel breathed out, sending golden winds of grace to tickle her feathers and aid her flight.

...

"What?" Mary shrieked. "Dean's been in the hospital? In a coma? Because of DEMONS?"

Ben winced at her pitch, and closed the lid of is laptop to better pay attention to his cousin's conversation on the phone.

"I don't care if your phone broke in the car crash, Sam. Put me on your damn emergency contacts next time!"

The hunter's placating tone sounded through the receiver, but the nephilim's holy rage remained unquenched.

"No! You don't get an excuse, this is exactly what we're here to prevent! You're supposed to call for backup when shit hits the fan, Sammy. Cas dammit, we're your family! You don't keep stuff like this from family. Now, where the hell are you?"

Sam's brow beaten tone sounded once again, and Mary snapped her phone shut.

"We're going to Grandpa Bobby's," she stated, already whirling to collect her scattered belongings from the hotel floor.

Ben nodded, sharing a quiet mental commentary about not poking nesting dragons with his passenger. Gadreel cited numerous examples from his youthful wars against the Darkness of healers being the most dangerous foe to face, when one wished to be let free of the field hospitals.

In no time, the trio had flown with their stolen car all the way to North Dakota, just half an hour outside of the Singer Salvage Yard, so as not to garner any suspicion as to their supernaturally quick travel.

Mary didn't even wait for the engine to turn off, before she leapt free of the vehicle to wrap her arms around Dean, who was working on the impala in the garage.

"Don't you ever do that again!" she snarled into his chest, eyes burning.

The hunter's distaste at the contact softened at her tone, and he carefully draped his black greased arms around her shoulders. "I know, I'm sorry."

Ben left the daughter and parent to their reunion to join Sam on the porch.

"Is she all right?" the taller man asked.

"Mary is unusually aware of her family's mortality," Ben said, glancing sideways at his sort-of-uncle. "She knows she's going to outlive most of us, and reminders of that leave her shaken up for a while."

Sam didn't have anything to say to that.

...

The dimension travelers spent the week with Sam and Dean at Bobby's house.

Mary clung to Dean's coat tails like a duckling, passing him tools when he worked to restore the totaled Impala, sitting across from him when he snuck snacks from the kitchen, and generally only letting him out of her sight to sleep and use the facilities.

The hunter didn't discourage her attentions, only looking at her with a soft expression as he explained the inner workings of an engine and the virtues of pie.

Sam and Ben spent the time in the library, alternatively research binging on their laptops and talking with Bobby about useful books to read.

By the end of the week, everyone was antsy for action.

Around that time, they also found a lead to someplace called the Roadhouse.

Giving Dean a break from Mary's clinging tendencies, Ben took the elder hunter with him in the stolen compact, while the other two Winchesters took the Impala.

The uncle and niece rode together in mostly silence, until Sam was forced to ask a question which had been nagging him for a while.

"So, where did your parents meet? Because I just can't see Dean settling down with anyone."

Mary shot him an incredulous look. "You kidding? The second mom got pregnant she retired, and dad was the worst mother hen ever. I remember when Jim, my brother, was little. Mom was going stir crazy with how much dad doted on her."

"Must run in the family." Sam slanted a gaze at her.

"Oh, shut up."

...

The party paused at a rest stop for some pie and dinner.

A tickle of grace at the edge of Gadreel's senses prompted Ben to excuse himself to the parking lot.

Lurking under a streetlamp, a trench coated figure watched his approach.

"Hello there," Ben said amicably, hands tucked into his coat pockets. Gadreel hung close to the edges of his nervous system, rallying his grace in case a smiting was necessary in the immediate future.

"You are not meant to be here," the blue eyed angel said.

"If we're being fair, I don't really want you here either."

"I belong in this universe, you and your companion do not."

"Ah. What gave us away?"

"Heaven noticed an aberration of grace flying across earth. I was...questioned, as it most closely resembled my own. When it became apparent I knew nothing, I was assigned to take care of the problem."

"And you've found us," Ben said. "So, what will you do?"

Castiel looked sideways at the transgenic. "That nephilim is of my making, yet I do not understand how I could have so grossly disobeyed God's commandments."

"Things are different in our home."

"Evidentially." The angel looked back to the hunters. "She is like...water."

"Like her other parent, or so I'm told."

"The Righteous man."

"Well, Righteous Woman back home, but yeah."

The seraph's shoulders hunched forwards hungrily. "To have resulted in such a being's creation, those versions of ourselves must have felt...strongly for one another."

"Would you like to see?" Ben said, waving at his temple.

The angel moved as if to place his fingers against the transgenic's brow, but clenched his hand into a fist half way there. "No. I should not." Blue eyes lingered on the dark haired woman as she smiled. "What she represents is not mine. The nephilim is only a possibility." A deeper laugh drew his attention to the other owner of green eyes. "Nothing more."

"But is Mary a possibility you will allow to let go?"

The muscles along Castiel's back tensed, quivering. "I will...tell them I could not find the anomaly."

A silent sigh escaped Ben's lips. "Thank you."

"Please do not. I fear this choice of mine will have far reaching consequences." He looked upwards. "I must return. Please advise...Mary to fly more discreetly."

The angel vanished in a flutter of wings.

...

The Roadhouse was officially Ben's new favorite hunter hangout.

The Men of Letter's Bunker was home, and Camp Chippewa was like summer camp, but the Roadhouse... Ben just wanted to grab his twin and hustle pool. He could picture Alec lording his prowess over the other patrons, drink in one hand, while the other tucked cards up his sleeves.

Such open normal human revelry was unusual to find in the hunting community back home. The transgenics, even after so many years free, did not readily comprehend how to easily intermingle with civilian populations. And angels, well, the less said the better.

When the Winchesters were preparing to leave, Ben took his cousin aside. "I think I'll hang out at the Roadhouse for a bit. Ash has some pretty awesome ideas about tracking demonic activity, kind of like the online map Charlie set up in the bunker."

Mary nodded, head pillowed on her arms. "I might stay for a while too." She chuckled. "You know, I never wondered why mom named me Joellen, but I think I'm starting to get an idea." A wide grin split across her face. "The Harvelle's are awesome."

...

"Hey Mary, is your cousin around?" Ash asked.

"I think he took Jo out for a salt and burn."

"Oh. When you see him, can you tell him I hacked that government site he wanted, but didn't find anything about manticores or mythological creatures. Though apparently area 51 has some great catering." He trailed off, taking a swig of his beer.

The nephilim nodded, suddenly feeling a swoop of shame dive through her stomach. She had been so focused on her quest to save this version of Sam and Dean, that she hadn't spared a thought to other members of her family who might be in trouble.

However, it seemed as if that branch did not exist in this universe.

Part of her felt infinitely sad that so many of her cousins simply did not exist here. Another was glad to spare them such suffering at the hands of Manticore.

...

...

A/N:

March 2006 is skin, April 2006 is Faith, John dies in August 2006, Tall Tale is in February

Abba: father in hebrew

Mah Nishmah: a greeting in hebrew equivalent to 'what's up?'

Shlomi Tov: My welfare is good (hebrew)

Shalom: peace. Can be a greeting or farewell (hebrew)

When Castiel got back to heaven, he was thrown into re-education. It did not end well for anyone.


	4. Chapter 4

...

...Ch4

...

"A Trickster?"

Mary looked over to where her cousin was on the phone with Sam. Something tickled in the recesses of her mind; a half forgotten bedtime story about angels masquerading on earth.

"No, I don't know anything about that," Ben continued, typing at his laptop. "What about you Mary?" But when the transgenic looked over, she had already flown away.  
...

When Mary is fifteen, she sits in the auditorium of Camp Chippewa and listens as Sheriff Jody Mills carefully explains about all the things which can happen to an unprepared woman, and all the mechanical knowledge needed to avoid such a fate.

Later that afternoon, Deanna takes her daughter aside and re-explains the facts of life, with careful notes and notations more suited to her specific circumstances.

"Now, I know gender doesn't mean much to your Daddy's side of the family, but humans take it a bit more seriously. So make sure you always ask what pronoun someone wants you to call them, otherwise it can get awkward."

The hunter chuckled. "Speaking of dicks with wings, if you do hook up with an angel, remember that consent is sexy. And by that I mean that the angel and the poor person they're in should be on board before you try anything."

That evening, Mary consulted her father on his opinion of the day's topic.

His feathers rustled sympathetically. "As you know, angels have a word for the exchange of genetic information and creation of progeny. What your mother an I do is not that."

Two of his sets of eyes closed in remembered rapture. "A human cannot feel more than the physical mechanics of what occurs, but neither you nor your brother would have been conceived if that was all which went on. Human souls continually surprise me with their resiliency. Love just...reaches out, wanting to create a new life."

Blue eyes harshly focused on green. "Be careful not to force your grace upon them if you ever take a human partner. It is an invasion, and shall not be condoned. An angelic partner...it is much like doing battle. Communing grace is exhilarating, but the mechanics are very similar to overwhelming an opponent's being to smite them. Rarely is it recommended to tie yourself so closely to one not of your choir. We also do not have the instinct to procreate. So while flirtations may sometimes be for play or provocative, they are always for pleasure."

Mary cringed as her father detailed the varied and disturbing sex lives of multidimensional wavelengths of celestial intent. There were lots of tentacles involved.  
...

She found Gabriel having internet trolls be forces to live under bridges in a town so tiny, his true form could have knocked it over with a misplaced feather.

Gliding through the non-planar dimensions, she swooped low to pluck at his fur in greeting.

The less human head snapped at her heels in response, but she was already out of its reach, perched on a pair of his antlers. The elk head snorted, but didn't shake her off.

"You should be more careful," the messenger intoned, vocal wavelengths humming pleasantly through the base of Mary's wings and soul.

"Why? Would you have bitten me?"

Golden pupiled multitudes rolled to fix upon her. "You don't want to test me, kid."

"I wouldn't think an archangel would notice even if I did," she replied coyly.

His eyes slanted away. "Well you're not wrong."

Mary smirked and dug her blunted claws into the closest perch. The being beneath her lunged out, but she had already darted away. Canine noses huffed, and beaks clacked as he lumbered smoothly in pursuit.

The nephilim slowed her flight somewhere in an empty patch of prairie, allowing her pursuer to catch her in his intentionally slow grab.

Long fingers with more joints than humanly accustomed caged her tiny form in a single palm, unwrinkled and reflecting gold like obsidian.

Her feathers rustled against the grace formed bars, all green eyes focused on her captor.

The archangel's hand, one of the many not acting as a cage, trailed down her top left wing, fingers curling with incremental pressure around the joint, as if contemplating the easy twist needed to rip the appendage off.

Mary whimpered deep in her throat, clutching her perch on his palm tightly.

"See, you are afraid of me," he said, releasing her from his entrapping fingers.

"I never said I wasn't," she panted. "Though, grabbing a girl's wing like that, I admit the emotions are getting a bit mixed. Next time, just pull on my pigtail, ok?"

"You're a cheeky little thing, aren't you."

She grinned widely, wings flaring in display. "Runs in the family."

Leaping from his palm, the nephilim swooped around the galaxies large being, skimming over the feathered sea as if they were miles of grass punctuated by irises. The space between his wing joints echoed like canyons, and she crowed out a pleura of song just to hear the sound come back to her. The canyons rustled.

"Quit it," the messenger said, eyes glaring from where they watched her around every crevice.

"Make me!" she sang, and the feathers shuddered again.

"Seriously, don't make me get the fly swatter out."

Mary darted in and around his horns, which cascaded like a forest. "Oh, I think I would at least warrant a double copy of Life Magazine."

The landscape bucked, losing coherency as it slipped past the physical realm into pure light. A supernova baked and burned in blinding white, with Mary less than an electron at its very heart.

Sound waves swirled through the wisps of her wings, braiding the ribbons of grace into tickling knots of rainbows.

She laughed, unable to disentangle her soul from the remembered reactions of her body.

Gabriel twisted around her, eyes flaring plasma. "Not so much fun when you're on the receiving end, is it?"

"Why?" Mary spluttered through her mirth. "Is this what I was doing to you? I didn't know you were so ticklish!" Her laughter bounced around the archangel's grace, striking long silent chords to ring like bells.

The archangel trembled. "You don't know what you do to me, little girl."

Claws tugged at the human tangle of her being, loosening threads as if pulling free a dense ball of twine. Mary gasped and shuddered, coming completely undone.

Her perceptions stuttered, and she blinked all of her eyes furiously, as the field in the middle of nowhere America came into focus around her.

Gabriel's vessel stood several feet away, hands tucked in jeans pockets, golden eyes piercing.

In six long strides, she crowded into his personal space, face pressing close to his.

He stepped back.

"You're cute," the archangel said, his tone heavy with understatement. "But you don't want this."

"Yes I do," Mary stated.

"Kid, you have no idea-"

"What, that heaven will smite me if we're seen together?" She canted her hips to the side, fist balanced just above her belt loop. "They'll do that to me just for existing in this universe, and back home everyone thinks you've been dead for ages."

His posture stiffened, muscles along his back tightening. In another plane, miles of wing and feather flared, ready to attack. "You have no idea what you're getting into. Do you know why the archangels never intermingled with the lower choirs? It's because if we got to close our grace would overwhelm them, and, if they were lucky, they survived. Imagine blowing a kiss, and you burn someone's wings black."

One stalk forward, and his nose was barely a breadth from her own. "I'm a nucleur bomb, sweetie, and you're a flickering christmas light. This isn't going to end well for one of us."

"And why do I believe you think that one is you?" She could feel her lips brush against his as she spoke.

He kissed her, hands tangling in her dark hair, aura flaring to scorch as it escaped his mental confinements. Mary gasped into his mouth, clutching at the front of his green coat, while the edges of her wings burned.

The archangel pulled back, eyes flaring gold. "Don't bother me again, kid."

He vanished in a flutter of sound.

Mary stood alone in an empty field, physically and spiritually frustrated. She carded her fingers through her feathers, trying not to saver the echoes of gold which simmered along her wings's edges, as she put the mussed wavelengths back to rights.

A shuddering breath ripped into her lungs, followed swiftly by another, and another, until she was a gasping wreck.

It started raining.

What a pathetic syntax.  
...

Mary stood shivering on the doorstep, face leaking sorrow from every orifice. "Grandpa Cain?" she sniffed. "Can-can I come ih-in for some- some tea, please?"

The greying man looked down at the trembling figure, brows unsure whether they should furrow in confusion or raise in surprise. They settled on a neutral gaze, as he opened the door wider to let the angelic being in.

She sat on his chintz couch, watching the beehive buzz away in the living room.

Cain handed her a steaming cup, which she gratefully took between her hands, but didn't drink.

He settled back into the armchair across from her. "So, mind telling me who you are?"

The young woman sniffed. "I'm your...lots of greats granddaughter, from a parallel universe."

The father of murder tilted his head. "Excuse me, I don't mean to be rude, but you don't look demonic enough to be related to me."

"It's a l-long story," she sniveled, utterly miserable.

Cain sighed. "You can explain over a pot of tea.

...

...A/N:

Not much. Uh, yes there is the potential for romantic feelings between gabriel and mary, just of the angelic variety, which is very very different from the human variety. Gabriel doesn't want to accidentally kill her, because archangel grace is like a very strong base: potent and it burns down to the bone.

Big time skip to next chapter, but only because I'm hand waving the cannon that happened and not caring where it went


	5. Chapter 5

...

...Ch5...

...

"Sammy's missing."

"What?" Mary startled from her relaxed posture on the couch. She had been spending some time helping Grandpa Cain tend to his bees. The old demon regarded her with suspicion, still, however was bemused, or at least morbidly curious, enough to allow her continued presence.

"Sam. Missing." Ben's voice said again. "Gadreel confirmed it as something demonic. I'm meeting up with Dean to check it out."

The nephilim stumbled to her feet. "Where are you?"

Ben recited an address, and with a hurried farewell to her pseudo-grandfather, Mary flew away.

"We think this is it? The demon finally making its move?" She said, in lieu of a greeting.

"Yes," the transgenic said, snapping his laptop shut. "Ash just sent me an email about something he uncovered. I'll have to swing by there first."

"No, you go meet with Dean," Mary said. "I can get to the Roadhouse faster."

"Be careful," Gadreel burned blue behind Ben's eyes.

The nephilim patted his cheek. "You two just focus on killing the demon and saving Sam."

...

The moment her wings skimmed the ether, Mary knew something was wrong.

She wove through sunbeams and dove around atoms, but the celestial pursuer clung to her slip stream. It snatched at her feathers, causing her to stumble mid air, and fall to a standstill.

Her pursuer landed nearby, its true form scorching the air. "You are a swift flier, for an abomination."

Mary's heart shriveled up and died. She grinned, despite how much her lips trembled. "Yeah, it runs in my family."

The angel tilted it's many heads, blue eyes searching. "You are not of this universe."

"What gave me away?" her wings fluttered, but he raised his knife to ward her against flying off.

"Your vibrational patterns are out of synchronization with this iteration of creation. Why are you here?"

"I just passing through."

"You should leave."

"I can't, until my family here doesn't need my help anymore."

"If you don't leave, I will be forced to make you."

Mary's wings flared, exposing twining patterns matching exactly those on the back of her attacker.

The angel paused in raising his silver blade. Its expression shifted from blank duty to a dawning interest. It stuttered, hands curling to clutch at the core of its grace, before conditioned disgust curled its lips into a snarl. Blood dripped from its blue eyes, as it raised its sword once more.

Mary braced herself for the blow, but before it could land, a wave of golden light enveloped her.

"Raising your hand to a lady like that's not nice, bucko."

"Ga-"

Thousands of feathers hushed her exclamation, cradling her close.

"You!" the blue eyed angel growled.

Gabriel smirked, heads tilted in examination. He whistled. "Boy, they really did a number on you upstairs, didn't they."

Pressed as close as she was to the archangel's grace Mary could feel how deeply the casual words cut and weighed upon his heart.

"I don't feel too good about pulling feathers when you don't have many left to spare, so I'll have to slap a bandaid on it." The archangel buried a clawed hand in the seraph's wings, golden grace curling deeply into the tattered mass. The angel shuddered and passed out.

"Is he ok?" Mary whispered into her rescuer's back.

"He will be," Gabriel soothed a wing over her brow, carrying them away.

"He didn't look like my parent," she mumbled. "He looked so... diminished. And he had so many scars."

"Heaven has a way of wearing away at people."

The archangel pretended not to notice as his passenger wiped her eyes. "Where are we?" she sniffed at length.

"My own pocket dimension. It's a nice place to kick back and think, or hide, as the case may be."

Mary nodded into his chest, taking comfort in the twining tendrils of grace tingling along the edges of her wings.

"You asked me once how you knew me," Gabriel said, twirling a feather between his antlers. "And I told you that you didn't. I was lying."

Gold eyes canted to her. "A long, long time ago, I found a little spark of somewhat-grace crying on the edges of what soon would become creation. I was young then, everything was, and I quickly became enamored with this new thing I had never seen before."

She chuckled wetly. "Knew I was right."

The archangel rolled a few of his eyes.

Mary wiped her face. "Thank you for saving me."

"How could I not?"

"How did you know where I was?"

Gabriel considered her, before reaching back to run a hand through the core of her wings. She shuddered, but he quickly withdrew, pulling free a single curly gold downy feather from amidst the turquoise.

"You tagged me with your grace?"

"Since the first day you found me."

She shook off the implications of that, trying to orient her shaken mind onto more pressing muscles along her back strained. "I have to go. Demons are after my family."

"The Roadhouse has burned," Gabriel said. "But the Winchesters are safe."

"What?"

"I checked it out," he said, golden eyes blinking along his planet encompassing wingspan. "Nice idea springing the Gate Guardian from the hen house, by the way. He's always been a bit stiff for me, but he takes his job very seriously."

"So it worked? The demon's gone?"

"Smote to a crispy center."

A rushing sigh escaped Mary's lips, deflating the taught line of her back. "Thank Grandpa."

"Never I thought I would hear Dad called that." Gabriel chuckled. "But if you just wanted the demon gone, why not just use an exorcism? Not that I'm complaining about you wanting it extra dead, but from a logistics standpoint, your plan could use some work."

Mary blinked. "Because when you exorcise a demon, it just comes back the next day? Because the gates of hell are like revolving door and...oh." She looked sheepish. "The hell gate hasn't been opened yet, has it."

"I'm just gonna say no."

"Ah, well." She twisted her fingers together. "He probably would have gotten out eventually anyway, so I just made extra sure that he couldn't."

"You know, you've thrown quite a large wrench into an awful lot of big plans."

"Is that a bad thing?"

The archangel hummed. "Depends on your perspective, I suppose."

Mary sighed tiredly.

"Hey, how long have you been in this universe?"

"Hm, about two years I think?"

He frowned. "And you've been anchoring your cousin here as well. No wonder you're exhausted."

"What?"

"Twisting the fabric of time and space is difficult at the best of times. Humans have traveled to parallel earths before, and the ones who've gotten stuck end up suffering degradation. Grace can hold off the effects for a while, but you don't have much to spare for him and yourself." He tilted his head. "Didn't anyone ever tell you this?"

Mary yawned again, pillowing her head over her folded arms. "One of my aunts might have mentioned it."

"You should go home."

"Come with me," she mumbled into his chest.

"You know I can't be with you the way you want."

She sighed. "You're my friend, and you'll be unhappy left alone here. Why can't that be enough of a reason to want you with me?"

"You have a gift of persuasion," the archangel chuckled. "I suppose I can sneak back with you."

Mary giggled. "I've always wanted a secret. I'll hug you and love you and call you George."

"If it's good enough for Bugs Bunny~"

They laughed together.

A weight seemed to lift from Gabriel's wings. "I can leave, can't I. Just let it all go. Who cares?"

"That's the spirit," she sighed tiredly.

...

Some time earlier, in an abandoned ghost town called Cold Oaks, Dean screamed as his brother was stabbed in the back.

"Sam!"

"Move!" Ben snarled, eyes flashing blue. In a blur, the transgenic ran from the impala to the scene of the attack, neatly snapping the neck of Sam's opponent.

His eyes flashed with a heavenly light, and he crouched over the younger Winchester, whose breathing became fainter as he bled out.

"Be calm, Sam Winchester," Gadreel said. "You shall not pass from this plane whilst I am here."

He touched the wound, and it healed instantly.

A gun clicked behind the angel's head. Slowly, he stood and turned, to see a wild eyed Dean glaring at him.

"Who the hell are you? Get out of Ben!"

"I was invited to reside within your grandchild," Gadreel said. Ben kept up a steady stream of assurances and commentary in the back of his consciousness.

"He wouldn't let a demon possess him!"

"I am no demon."

"Bullshit!"

"Dean?" Sam groaned from the dirt.

"Sammy?" Instantly the hunter dropped to his brother's side, hands searching for a wound amidst his bloody clothing. "You're ok." He sounded bewildered. "But I saw you get stabbed."

"I healed him," Gadreel chimed in.

The Winchesters stared up at him in hesitant wonder. Sam opened his mouth to say something, when the burning scent of sulfur permeated the town.

"Well, Sammy boy, looks like you've won." The yellow eyed demon smirked.

Gadreel stepped between the demon and humans. "Be gone. You shall not harm my charges."

Azezeal scrutinized the newcomer. His expression morphed into a snarl as realization dawned, yellow eyes flaring. "Your kind isn't supposed to be here!"

"I would not concern yourself with that," Gadreel intoned. His wings lashed out, chains burning through the black spirit's smoke.

The demon screamed as the angelic grace tore through his being. Gadreel pulled it closer, tattered body bristling with divine wrath, unimpeded by his lack of a sword.

The guardian's grace flared. A moment later, the demon's vessel fell to the floor, eyes burned out along with the hell spawn.

The Winchesters watched this all, incredulity mounting with each passing second.

"Who are you?" Sam croaked.

Gadreel looked down at the brothers, an impractical smile touching the corners of his mouth. "My name is Gadreel. I am an angel."

Dean made a noise as if to protest, but was convinced to reconsider his stance on celestial beings in light of the still smoking corpse a few feet away. He cleared his throat. "Right. Angel. Awesome."

"Indeed." Gadreel agreed.

"Why are you here?" Sam said, struggling into a seated position. "Is Ben-?"

"Ben is here." The angel placed a hand on his chest. "He offered to be my vessel when I was in need."

"You're possessing him?"

"I signed an informed consent contract."

"Wait, what?" Sam did a double take.

Ben mentally rolled his eyes and nudged his body guest out of the way. "Angels are pretty common on earth back home. They can't really touch anything without something exploding, unless they have a vessel. Our family is crazy compatible for most angels, so some of us are part time vessels. The contract is just to make sure we don't get body-jacked."

"That's. Ok." Sam blinked hard, as if wondering if he was still bleeding out on the ground, and everything currently happening was a strange hallucination.

"Does Mary have an angel on her shoulder too?" Dean asked, recovering better than his brother.

"Not exactly." Ben shrugged. "But, can we talk about this somewhere else? Preferably not a ghost town full of corpses?"

Dean nodded, falling into protective brother mode. "Right, we'll go to Bobby's." He made to pull Sam to his feet, but Ben easily picked up the absurdly tall man with ease, and carried him bridal style to the Impala's back seat.

...

"So, I guess you two are going home now, then."

Mary nodded tiredly, slumped against her cousin as they sat around Bobby's kitchen table. The Winchester brothers had taken the news about parallel universes and breaking into heaven quite well, all things considered.

Dean brushed a hand over his lips. "What about you, Dreel? Flying the coop as well?"

The angel tilted Ben's head. "I do not think so. I exist there already. I do not wish to unbalance their universe."

"You're free to stick around here, if you want."

A hesitant smile pricked the angel's mouth. "I will have to confer with my new vessel, but I would very much like to visit, if that is permitted."

Dean grinned. "Of course! You're practically family! And you saved Sam. That gets you a lot of brownie points."

Mary chuckled tiredly at the angel's confused expression. "That's probably a good idea. Gadreel should know how to call me. We should meet for a picnic or something. You know, when I'm feeling back to one hundred percent."

The hunter's eyes softened. "I'ld like that."

The party eventually made their way outside. The transgenic half carried his cousin outside of the salvage yard's gates, and prepared to depart this dimension.

Ben gasped, eyes glowing white, as the celestial wavelength left his body.

"Oh, I'm gonna feel that in the morning," he moaned, doubling over. "Dreel, why did I let you gorge on cake?"

"Because you give great going away presents," Mary laughed, leaning heavily against her cousin. "Now let's go home, I'm exhausted."

...

...

A/N: This is the same universe where Mary went as a child and met Gabriel, before creation was a thing.

Also, yes, I totally stole the whole "can't live away from your own world without getting sick" from the Amber Spyglass.

Tall Tales was in February, Hell Breaks Loose was in April/May

Eruv: Hebrew word meaning a public space, like a forum type thing

Tzaddekes: righteous woman

ktanim yekarim banim: little precious children

neshama: Israli term of endearment which means soul

horim: hebrew for parent. horai: father

Did I even use half of these words in this story? I can't remember. Probably.

Anyway, hey. Part Three is thing that will happen. Stay tuned!


End file.
